To borrow Ann Patchett’s tagline on her Friday morning social media reel, If you haven’t read it, it’s new to you! 

This novel is one of those treasures I missed along the way, that I’m so glad I found. Shelved in the book club section of my library, this 2013 novel written by Haitian author Edwidge Danticat, is an immersive read filled with many questions about love, raising children, the impact of poverty, and an almost believable magical realism, that leaves much to think and talk about.

While it certainly reads like the historical fiction novel its classified as, it can also be approached as linked short stories. In that sense, it reminded me of Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteredge. While there is connection amongst the villagers, each chapter reads as its own short story.

Set in the fictional town of Ville Rose, the book opens on the title character Claire’s seventh birthday. Claire Limye Lanme or Claire of the Sea Light was born to a happily married fisherman and his wife, also Claire. Tragically, she died in childbirth. Young Claire is a magical child adored by her community.

Her father, Nozias has done the best he can to raise her, but he is extremely poor and has trouble providing for them. He has come to the heartbreaking decision that Claire would be better off raised by a local shopkeeper, Gaille, whose own daughter has died. Up until this night, Nokias has been refused. But something has changed and when Gaille accepts and Claire is told she must leave her father and all she knows, she disappears. The villagers rush to find her.

Ville Rose contains a cast of flawed, yet often remarkable characters. They span a range of economic and social status. Most of the book is devoted to the lives of the people who are living in the town, rich and poor, impoverished in spirit or contented, believers and nonbelievers in improving or accepting their fates. We read their stories, written with economy and grace, with Claire’s disappearance always in the background. All of it flows into a cohesive narrative.

Some of the community:

Nozias, a devoted father lost the love of his life in childbirth, struggles with both the loss of his love Claire with the gain of his daughter. He ekes out a living as a fisherman and struggles with the decision to give his daughter away so she will have a more promising future. The father and child are rich in many things but poverty can be hard to ignore.

Bernard, lives in a mid level slum among dangerous gang members and corrupt police, but has aspirations to work at the local radio station.

His good friend Max, son of a school principal, leaves town unexpectedly to move to Miami. When Max returns several years later unexpected secrets and conflicts are revealed.

Louise George hosts a program at the radio station that reveals personal stories of the villagers. She has a strange medical condition and a personal relationship with Max’s father, the school principal. She also volunteers in his school.  An unfortunate incident spins out of control. Max Sr takes it to extremes. Louise is reminded:

            “One of his favorite things to say to her was that she was like a starfish, that she constantly needed to have a piece of her break off and walk away in order to become someone new. Of course, this has always been truer of him than of her.“

            The last chapter reverts to Claire who thinks about all the things that she’d heard and experienced in her young life. She thinks in poetry and her view of the world is dreamlike. An example:

“Sometimes when she was lying on her back in the sea, her toes pointed, her hands facing down, her ears half submerged, while she was listening to both the world above and beneath the water, she yearned for the warm salty water of her mothers body, the waves of her mother’s heartbeat, the sunlight, the tunnel that guided her out the day her mother died.“

I highly recommend this book and will go into Danticat’s substantial backlist to read more of her work. The stories are deeply rooted in all the attributes that make us human.

Edwidge Danticat is a prolific author. She is National Book Award, The Story Prize, and the National Books Critic Circle Award winner among other prestigious awards. She is a writer whose works across many genres and enrich our understanding of Haitian life, culture, immigration and the experience of the diaspora.

Highly recommend.